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This Is What Compassion Looks Like: A Buddhist View of Occupy Wall Street

It started 28 days ago, with a ragtag group of people who called themselves “Occupy Wall Street” planting themselves at Liberty Square Plaza (aka Zuccotti Park) in New York City, under the shadows of skyscrapers.

They gathered together to call attention to the disproportionate influence that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans have over our political and economic system. Using the phrase “We are the 99 percent,” they drew a circle of inclusion around the myriad forms of structural violence and suffering that so many of us are experiencing these days.

The Buddha would probably agree with their analysis.

Numerous Buddhist texts point out that poverty is not any individual’s fate or karma, but rather exists in a web of causes and conditions. The Buddha also noted that the way to build a peaceful society is to ensure equitable distribution of resources.

In a more contemporary rendering of Buddhist teachings, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh offers this precept: “Do not accumulate wealth whilst millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life, fame, profit, wealth or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy and material resources with those who are in need.” Bernie Glassman Roshi says: Do not foster a mind of poverty in yourself or others.

In less than a month, this gathering in New York has grown into a worldwide movement that has captured the public imagination and vision. This is a leaderless movement, and one that started without any clear demands, and one that is committed to nonviolence. These are exactly the kinds of movements that those with privilege and power have no idea how to contain.

There is a precedent for this kind of social change. The Civil Rights movement, though now almost exclusively identified with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and to a lesser degree, Rosa Parks, was actually comprised of many leaders in multiple locations who gradually self-organized so that the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. And like Occupy Wall Street, the Civil Rights movement grew in its own power based on a common dedication to justice for all.

Some have criticized or ridiculed Occupy Wall Street because it has not formed a list of clear demands for change. Instead, it has relied on a participatory, emergent process, even inviting the public at large to weigh in on what issues are of most importance.

What is really remarkable about this movement is that somehow it has raised the process of “how” change happens to being more important than the “what” of change.

The people on the streets in New York are in the process of being the change they wish to see, to use Gandhi’s phrase. They have organized to provide health care for each other, to feed each other, to clean up their space together, to deal with difficult situations using creative solutions. They have intentionally refused alignment with any political party in order to keep their message open to the widest audience. They are taking pains to use a collective decision-making process so that the voices of the marginalized are being heard and considered.

In the context of Buddhist teachings and practice, these are all compassionate actions.

It calls to mind the words that Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy spoke at the 2003 World Social Forum:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

The downfall of any revolution is when it unknowingly replicates what has come before it. Can Occupy Wall Street succeed? It can, if it continues to place generosity and compassion before greed, and to recognize the power of interdependence, causality and selflessness.

22 Responses to This Is What Compassion Looks Like: A Buddhist View of Occupy Wall Street

It starts with what we teach and mirror to our children and how we learning every day; thank you for the inspiration. Be a rebel and listen to your own instincts and heart. See you at Occupy Victoria tomorrow.

Sigh…Thank you. Both of you, so much for all your work and contribution to getting this voice out there. You’re both such inspiring and powerful forces in our world, and how lucky we are for you both to be part of this time in ourstory..
Smiles till liberation,
Madrone / Ryushin

Gratitude, gratitude. I was with OccupyDenver last night for several hours. This movement needs our help. These young people, devoted to nonviolence, are confronted with those with violent language and motivations. Their right actions are being disrupted continuously by those who enter into the movement with vitriolic rage. Our work could very well be to assist with those who detract from the important message.

They do an excellent job with that when they are able to get to the troublesome spots. Their wisdom is so beautiful. Our support is essential.

Thank you for bearing witness.
I told them I would contact you, and here you are with bountiful
equanimity. We need Aitken Roshi’s sign: The System Sucks!

Hi Lorraine, We’ll be out there in the streets today, at least the streets of Santa Fe. I know the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has an extensive network of practitioners all around the country…. they will also be on hand to offer a meditative presence in many of the “Occupy” events going on today.

“…many leaders in multiple locations organizing for ” for the good and truth and love for all beings on this earth.

Thank you for your response to this occupy movement, one full of grace and love as the way we can begin to all live with one another. Showing the “how” of change, not having to know all the answers, but that something must be done.

Thank you for your wisdom in response to the protesters wisdom. In an atmosphere of gloomy presidential weather all over the “news” you spread hope.

Our collective capacity is enough to shift the world. We are witnessing and being invited to be a part of a quantum leap of consciousness shifting towards a co-creative society that values cooperation and stewardship, peace and connectivity. We have deep thinkers with great wisdom to show us how to converge in small groups towards a larger global shift. Each one of us can find our own part in this movement, and have fun doing it!

However we determine our relationship with enlightenment, Buddhists exist in the world. Insight and meditation bring us to engagement in the world, monasteries are for refuge but not for disengagement. In this world our compassion needs to recognise what the corporatocracy does, and we as 99% need to determine our response in regards to this corporatocracy. #OWS, although not necessarily Buddhist, have determined their response to this corporatocracy and as Roshi Joan points out their organisation has much to commend it – to take it out of traditional failed structures. Hopefully #OWS can show Buddhists that in this world compassion is more than meditation.

Thank you for your gift of clarity and wisdom. It is this understanding of the compassion and peace that underlie this “joining together” across ‘planet earth’ which allows our ‘collective consciousness’ to create a world of grace and light, love and peace.

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form……Stand in the heart of the flow, for that which occupies wall street will not be trapped in form or concepts of want but in the compassion of being, simply being that precious human life that we are called to be.

I am looking forward to joining others in San Diego and North County to meditate and share the dharma. All bodhisattvas have the opportunity to show the true meaning of the occupy movement. The end to suffering for all sentient beings.

Thanks much to Roshi Joan Halifax and Maia Duerr for their affirmative words re. the occupy movement. While I am in full support of the movement I am nonetheless prone to feeling like we are moving through a troubled time that just has to play itself out. It sometimes feels like general political actions fall on deaf ears and that helping each other through these times on local and personal levels is more fruitful. But as this piece shows, these are not mutually exclusive activities and this movement deserves whatever support we can muster.

I would like to thank you and Roshi Joan for allowing me to come and be a resident there. I very much enjoyed the forms and service as well as meeting you all. When we all went out to bandaler hiking it was so much fun.~Namaste’

I appreciate this report, providing a context for the actions and interest. Locally, the Occupy Eugene movement continues in many ways not noticed or not reported by the media. While the tents and the many people who were sleeping in the tents (some who have homes elsewhere but were gathered to work together and some who have no other homes) were closed down by city officials, many Occupiers have moved into a warehouse and continue work on issues such as medical care and homes for those without. I have attended Occupy workshops on NonVerbal Communication, and have attended meditation/prayer meetings. These are but a few of the many, many actions that support community but that are not reported in the media. Much still to happen with the Occupation Movement!

[…] Tenzin Robert Thurman showed up at Zuccotti Park to talk about “a cool revolution,” I penned this article with Roshi Joan Halifax which appeared in the Huffington Post, and Michael Stone and Ethan Nichtern […]

[…] Tenzin Robert Thurman showed up at Zuccotti Park to talk about “a cool revolution,” I penned this article with Roshi Joan Halifax which appeared in the Huffington Post, and Michael Stone and Ethan Nichtern […]

[…] see something special was transpiring. I wrote about what I was seeing and feeling in this piece, “This is What Compassion Looks Like,” co-authored along with Roshi Joan Halifax. An excerpt: Some have criticized or ridiculed Occupy […]

[…] see something special was transpiring. I wrote about what I was seeing and feeling in this piece, “This is What Compassion Looks Like,” co-authored along with Roshi Joan Halifax. An excerpt: Some have criticized or ridiculed Occupy […]

[…] see something special was transpiring. I wrote about what I was seeing and feeling in this piece, “This is What Compassion Looks Like,” co-authored along with Roshi Joan Halifax. An excerpt: Some have criticized or ridiculed Occupy […]